I am super excited to be joining the Love Notions Handmade Holidays Tour today! I am sharing Lucy’s Christmas dress and I must admit I chose the quick & easy way out! I can whip up a little knit dress so much faster than a woven one…and circle skirts are even faster than gathering…plus knit dresses are easier for me to launder and more comfy for my daughter to wear!
I chose to use the Maggie Peplum pattern by Love Notions, but I added a full circle skirt. The red stretch crushed velvet fabric is from Jo-Ann’s. I have previously made a Maggie Peplum with a lengthened skirt (see here), but it’s more of a half circle skirt and this time I wanted a bit fuller of a skirt for more twirl-ability!
Adding a circle skirt was super easy…I used this tutorial for how to cut the pattern piece for a skirt that would fit the bodice perfectly, but instead of using “Waist Length + 2 inches” as the circumference in her equation I used the width of the bodice pattern piece x 4
In my case, the width of the bodice pattern piece at the waist for Lucy’s size 5 measures
6 3/8
waist circumference = 6 3/8 * 4 = 25 1/2
radius = 25 1/2 / 6.28 = 4.06
Then I followed the rest of that tutorial, but instead of cutting one circle with that radius cut 2 half-circles with that radius (so only fold the fabric in half width-wise when you cut but you need to cut 2 pieces).
Note: I actually made the mistake of taking out the seam allowances and cutting it as one big circle with no seams, so I used waist = 6 * 4 = 24; radius = 24 / 6.28 = 3.82. This was problematic because the nap of the fabric ended up upside-down in the back…oops!
I love this dress despite my issue with the nap going the wrong way in back! The Maggie bodice is such a perfect fit!
Lucy is pleased with her dress too! She couldn’t stop twirling!
I even made the boys come along too to try and get some Christmas card photos…
Happy Holidays! Don’t forget to check out the other fabulous blogs on tour!
sewshellysew.wordpress.com 
I love the dress. Lucy takes the best pictures!
I can see why your daughter loves this dress so much! Both of my kids prefer knits, and I too love sewing them. The colour is fantastic, besides being very seasonally appropriate it also happens to be my fave colour 🙂 And the twirly skirt, gah, who can resist a twirl factor?